Main menu

The next GI is complete. As always the bases wait until a full or half-squad are complete, just to keep things looking consistent. This one carries an M16 smoke grenade which adds a nice splash of colour. I’m really enjoying painting the faces on these in particular.

If there’s any interest I can share a full list of colours and things for these.

I’ve spent today figuring out a pallette for my late war GIs. The M43 uniform is slightly elusive (at least to me). It’s green, but with a very specific tone that tends to change under different lighting. Same for US webbing. The uniform itself ended up getting a repaint. I origianlly used AK Interactive’s ‘M43 uniform’ from their Figure Paint line but found it very grainy and difficult to get on with. it can glaze amazingly and holds pigment at really high dilutions, but always seemd to chalky when dry.

First of many new Empress Miniatures US figures. Paul absolutely killed it with these (if I do say so), particularly the faces. Slightly dodgy phone snaps as usual. Apologies for overdoing the angles and the size, but these pics are for sniffing out any problems before I crack on en-masse.

A few phone happy-snaps of recent stuff. Terrible photos but it’s really convenient to just use the phone for WIPS and it gives me a good idea if I’ve missed anything.

Perry Miniatures Vichy French are the real thing going on here, but I tend to invite distractions so certainly not the only stuff that’ll get done. There are a few more of these since this photo was taken.

I do really like this range and it’s captured my imagination a bit. Very tough to research properly though so if anyone has anything useful it would be much appreciated. The situation isn’t helped by a lot of French records (and even many pre-war records of the metropolitan army) seemingly being destroyed, perhaps for obvious reasons.They are really delicate little figures, which I like, and as with much of the Perry WW2 range the detail can be a little ‘sketched’ at times. I actually don’t mind this and enjoy interpreting it as I paint the details in. I have a heap of vehicles here too so hope to tackle one or two over Christmas.

I also now have several opinions on the subject of painting knees.

Sudan light infantry officer is include because it’s my favorite figure in that whole range. I painted a few of these a while back but shelved for now until the muse strikes again.

Russian Civil War figures were really a palette cleanser to get me painting again after a few months off. Copplestone is a genius and painting these is so easy it’s a good way to get a bit of momentum going again. These always feel more like colouring in an illustration than painting figures to me – very expressive and a lot of fun.

No bases finished here. I usually do these in batches for consistency (and because it’s a bit boring tbh).

I’m on a complete Copplestone-fest right now, and in two scales to boot! I’ve always found Mark’s sculpting style to be the ultimate ‘palette-cleanser’ and a great relief after painting many other figures. His choice of theme is always a perfect match for this style.

A Landsknecht doppler soldner (with Zwei Hander sword) from the Warlord (ex-Pro Gloria) range. Another wonderful Hicksie sculpt. More of these to come, although my camera seems to be on the way out so getting halfway useabsle images is a real chore.

So, to celebrate a 100% increase in followers to this blog (up to a whole two now – weyhey) I thought it might be a good time to show there’s still life in the old girl yet!

I’ve actually been pretty busy hobby-wise (at least by my standards) with the hope of finishing enough to enter the Lead Adventure Forum ‘Lead Painters League’ this year. To be honest things are looking a bit less hopeful with a big juicy dose of real-life kicking the year off. Still I’m pushing ahead where I can and will certainly have some new toys to show on here soon.

One of the rules of the LPL is that figures earn extra points for not having been shown elsewhere on the internets. I like this a lot, especially because it curbs forum-spammers like myself (nothing like seeing the same set of figures on five different forums … at least change the text lads 😉 ). It does mean that I’m keeping my cards close to my chest for now and have nothing I can post. If I don’t get at least five teams ready by the deadline then I’ll just post away here anyway, but for now I’ll hold on to the faint hope that a minor miracle is going to happen in the next week or so.

I can at least hint as to what’s coming … some 15mm Barbarians, some 20mm WW2, some 28mm WW2 and some 28mm Fantasy for starters.

In the meantime here are some old pictures, because posts without pictures suck! Perry Sudan Sikhs and Empress British Infantry for the first New Zealand Wars.

So, I’ve been busy on several projects over the summer, some examples below.

Painting in Malta is slightly different to the UK, with temperatures and humidity so high. I’ve had a devil of a time getting my airbrush to work for more than 5 minutes at a time, and paint behaves a little differently in the heat (not to mention the exciting things that happen to varnish in this humidity).

Overall things are moving along and I’m really enjoying painting again. Really loving painting some Dark Ages figures (especially the Footsore range) and have a new 15th Century Lion Rampant project in the wings, shared with someone who I’ve met on the island.

I’ll probably write a little more about Dark Ages ranges soon. I’ve been picking up a lot of what’s available with no real plan other than that they are great to paint and the background fascinates me. Comparing the different ranges side by side has been an interesting exercise, and there are some newer ‘players’ on the market including the rather excellent Saxon Miniatures range.

Footsore Miniatures Aella sculpted by Bill Thornhill. An absolutely brilliant figure and one that I might paint again at some point!

The finished Perry Miniatures SAS Jeep. The picture doesn’t really do it justice (I would say that though wouldn’t I?), but it is really quite tiny and looks nice in-hand. The original casting needed a little clean-up, but nothing too stressful.